Today Russian officials announced that they were charging Vadim Timofeyev, the deputy head of the Yak-Service airline, with breaching air safety rules after an investigation revealed that neither of the two pilots of that plane should have been flying. A previous investigation found that the plane's brakes had been accidentally applied during take off.

According to Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the committee that conducted the investigation, the captain had "falsified documents," and the co-pilot had never been trained to fly that particular type of aircraft. One pilot also had sedatives in his system and the other had a motor-skill debilitating disease.

When I moved to Indonesia, I actually made sure to book a flight that did not involve any Russian airlines whatsoever.

I mean, there weren't any Russian airlines available to choose from at any point during the flight, but the fact that I even bothered to check is a sad condemnation on the state of Russian Aviation.

Literally, like a month before I booked my flight, this tragedy had just taken place. Honestly, I can see the mountain where that plane crashed (Mt. Salak) from my window, that's how close it is to me ATM.

Isn't today the anniversary of the Lokomotiv crash? Such an unnecessary tragedy. So sad.

My uncle passed away in a plane crash a few years ago, pilot error from a pilot that had 10+ years of military experience and 20+ years of commercial experience. The rookie copilot objected with the landing strategy but the pilot went ahead anyways.

My takeaway: if even experienced pilots can screw up like that, the fact that an unlicenced pilot and copilot would have been allowed to fly this plane is despicable. The russian peoples should be greatly ashamed of the incident, and those responsible should be punished to the full extent of the law.

So how about the people from Continental that firstly outsourced a commuter flight to some mom & pop airline without the knowledge of the consumers that assumed they were flying on a Continental operated plane, then hired a pilot that didn't know how to prevent and recover from a stall that ultimately ended in another tragedy? (The Buffalo crash of 2009)

Sure the people at the top bear some responsibility for the Lokomotiv accident. First you'd have to prove that they actually knew that the pilot had forged documents. For the co-pilot to be dangerously inexperienced, I would bet that is FAR more common than anyone would like to believe.

I fly a lot. Nowhere near what a pro athlete would, but still way more than the average person I am sure.

I would NEVER fly on a Russian airline, or most African airlines, or most discount carriers.

There is always a risk when you are hurtling at 500 mph in a metal tube at 35000 feet, and that won't ever go away, but I do think we're kidding ourselves if we think this is a strictly Russian issue.

It happens here too. It happens everywhere. Cost will trump safety every time regardless of what your airline tells you.

So how about the people from Continental that firstly outsourced a commuter flight to some mom & pop airline without the knowledge of the consumers that assumed they were flying on a Continental operated plane, then hired a pilot that didn't know how to prevent and recover from a stall that ultimately ended in another tragedy? (The Buffalo crash of 2009)

Sure the people at the top bear some responsibility for the Lokomotiv accident. First you'd have to prove that they actually knew that the pilot had forged documents. For the co-pilot to be dangerously inexperienced, I would bet that is FAR more common than anyone would like to believe.

I fly a lot. Nowhere near what a pro athlete would, but still way more than the average person I am sure.

I would NEVER fly on a Russian airline, or most African airlines, or most discount carriers.

There is always a risk when you are hurtling at 500 mph in a metal tube at 35000 feet, and that won't ever go away, but I do think we're kidding ourselves if we think this is a strictly Russian issue.

It happens here too. It happens everywhere. Cost will trump safety every time regardless of what your airline tells you.

I agree.

Thinking that this only happens because it was Russian is a mistake. I don't think anyone that says the chance may be greater in a place like Russia is wrong, but no matter who you're flying with you're never invincible.

Jesus, didn't know how to recover from a stall? You learn that early on in your private pilots license training.

That's hundreds of hours before the commercial license, etc.

When you're learning how to recover from one in training, it's all quite planned - "okay, let's do a stall now" - good weather, lots of altitude, you JUST talked about how to recover, etc.

When it actually happens, it's at the end of a long day, in the dark, in ****** weather when you're worried about something else (and this time that is what's front of mind) - like Colgan - or when you're hours away from anything other than monitoring systems and suddenly things are dropping offline, the aircraft is falling rapidly towards the ocean and every time you do what you're supposed to do in a stall, the aircraft screams at you that you're making things worse.

There are massive failures on multiple levels in these accidents, but the notion of it being a failure to recover from a simple stall like in the ppl is kind of like seeing a pileup on the 401 and saying "man, everybody knows you're not supposed to drive into other cars".

When you're learning how to recover from one in training, it's all quite planned - "okay, let's do a stall now" - good weather, lots of altitude, you JUST talked about how to recover, etc.

While I agree to an extent about being tired, not prepared, etc. the way pilots are trained nowadays (and I don't remember the exact #'s as I'm not trying to be a pilot, but I've taken 4-5 courses like ground school and aerodynamics) it should come as second nature assuming the flight hours are somewhat similar to our system. Recurrent training or whatever it's called are there for that exact purpose.

And during training, it's not always announced you're going to do this or that. That depends on the flight instructor to an extent, but a good one is gonna put you in a situation and make you handle it. I mean, he has a yoke as well if something goes wrong. I have two flight hours, and 5 minutes after takeoff on my first flight my instructor gave me the yoke and said fly (vfr obviously)

One thing about the Colgan air crash...maybe they were too close to the ground?

If even I know that you dip the nose and accelerate...it's hard to believe that a real pilot doesn't know these things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by derriko

While I agree to an extent about being tired, not prepared, etc. the way pilots are trained nowadays (and I don't remember the exact #'s as I'm not trying to be a pilot, but I've taken 4-5 courses like ground school and aerodynamics) it should come as second nature assuming the flight hours are somewhat similar to our system. Recurrent training or whatever it's called are there for that exact purpose.

If the pilots knew it was actually a wing stall, they'd have recovered, no question. That's the part where the training diverges from reality - even if you're given something unexpected in training, you're still in training and you know it, so you're alert to the fact that things are afoot. There's a big difference in response to something you know is coming (just not when) and something you truly aren't expecting.

In the case of Colgan, John, the captain believed it was a tail plane stall - they cause the nose to drop too - because they can be caused by icing and usually happen when the flaps are selected down. The way to recover from a tail stall is to haul the nose up and slow down. So here they are, flying around in icing conditions (I flew into Buffalo that day, it was ****** weather) and when they select flaps down, the nose drops. He knew it was a stall, but he didn't notice his speed was too low for a tail stall, and so he made the correct reaction to the wrong situation and 50 people died.

Now, he should've noticed his speed, and if he did, he'd have known what was going on and reacted correctly. As it was though, the environment, bad timing (stalling right after flaps down) and in attention caused an accident. It's just not as simple as "even I know that".

Quote:

And during training, it's not always announced you're going to do this or that. That depends on the flight instructor to an extent, but a good one is gonna put you in a situation and make you handle it. I mean, he has a yoke as well if something goes wrong. I have two flight hours, and 5 minutes after takeoff on my first flight my instructor gave me the yoke and said fly (vfr obviously)

Sure, I can make a student do something they didn't expect to do on that flight, but I can hardly cause the aircraft to completely depart from controlled flight without you noticing. As you said, we'll put you in a situation and make you sort it out, but the difference between training and the real world is - and this is significant - in the real world you might put yourself in the situation without noticing and suddenly something is wrong. Now you've got to figure it out *rightfarkingNOW* and get it right first time or it's too late.

Add a few factors like bad weather, fatigue, complex aircraft systems, equipment failures, etc, and you can see how it's not just like being in the practice area in a 152.

I still don't understand why they don't give you an emergency parachute on an airplane.

I know the speed and altitude stuff, but at least you'd have a chance at surviving.

People say it's the safest way to travel, or that the most dangerous part of the trip is the drive to the airport, but at least in a car or on a boat you have a chance to escape relatively injury free.

I still don't understand why they don't give you an emergency parachute on an airplane.

I know the speed and altitude stuff, but at least you'd have a chance at surviving.

You would NEVER have a chance of surviving jumping out of a plane at 35,000 feet. The highest recommended altitude of jumping is like somewhere around 3000-8000 feet, I think. You'd be at that altitude for maybe 2 minutes in a crash scenario? Not much chance for many people to get out.

Also - this is a 747:

Notice how all the side doors line up fairly well with the tail fin of the plane? I'd bet at least 1/3 to 1/2 die hitting that tail. And most of the rest would die from hitting the side of a plane going over 500-600km/hr.

So maybe, if you could have the opportunity to have your ***** in order to jump out of the plane in your 2 minute window, AND somehow avoid ricocheting off the side of an out-of-control plane, AND be lucky enough avoid the fin, AND have enough sense to open the parachute when you're probably in shock, maybe.

I'd still say the survival rate is somewhere around 5%

Most airlines have lifejackets, rafts, and water-crash gear for a reason: the chance of being able to direct a crash landing into water is higher than the chance of a handful of random parachute passengers surviving.

ALSO: only like 16% of aviation fatalities occur when the plane is cruising at max altitude. 30% happen during takeoff/ initial ascent, and 25% occur during final approach/landing. Neither scenario offers really enough time to properly prepare for any parachute time.

Surely you could have an emergency evacuation route at the back of the plane, ie: where they load your luggage in?

I do agree with most of what you wrote. What happens when a plane has a problem? Usually they dive down to around 10000 feet from what I've read, and slow down if possible. Certainly survivable circumstances to jump in.

Of course jumping at 500 mph at 35000 feet IF you cleared the plane...you still wouldn't be able to breathe, and you'd freeze. It's pretty cold up there.

Also I can't imagine the impact of your chute opening at that speed would have any sort of positive effect on your body.

I know parachutes on commercial airliners are extremely impractical to say the least, but I sure would hate to croak in a plane crash.